“Sketchy” by Olivia Samms

The first entry in Olivia Samms’ “Bea Catcher Chronicles” is a lively story.

Olivia Samms‘ gripping novel “Sketchy” is the first in a series about the dynamic and fallible Bea Washington, a recovering drug addict and high school student who has the preternatural ability to draw whatever a nearby person is thinking about. (Awkward if Bea happens to be sketching near a typical adolescent male on hormonal overdrive.)

It’s an engaging premise, and one that will appeal to fans of TV shows like “CSI,” “Lie To Me” and “Dexter.”

“Sketchy” opens with some boys who, while cutting class, literally stumble across the pallid body of a girl who’s been raped, hurt and left for dead. The victim’s revival begins a chain of events that sucks Bea, and all her foibles, into its gravitational pull. She’s an unlikely and unwilling heroine, with a nascent love interest that feels a smidgen predatory. (Really? An apparently good cop and a 17-year-old girl?)

“Sketchy,” apart from the ick factor associated with the increasingly over-interested detective, is a quick, riveting read. Bea’s talent is paranormal, but barely. It’s a hugely welcome relief from the surfeit of teen books featuring vampires, werewolves, zombies and other beasts. Bea is smart and refreshing, a rebel doing her best to do well by doing good, or at least doing better than she has in the past. I’m eager to see what happens next in her chaotic life.